NHL 16 Video and Details - Be a GM Player Morale

[Steve_OS]

In the latest NHL 16 video, Associate Producer Andy Agostini talks about the innovations made to Be a GM and Player Morale. Below are some notes from the blog, but click here to read all about it.

• Being a GM in NHL 16 is about more than just getting the best players, it’s about getting the right players to play well together. Every player on an NHL or AHL team has a unique personality that you will have to manage. Deal with trade demands, teammate relationships, and much more by calling team meetings or adjusting your roster to directly affect your team’s on-ice performance.
  
• Every player in our game features a personality type upon entry into the league or when created for the first time (in the case of generated rookies for the Entry Draft). Each personality type includes a number of traits that impact how they react to certain events. Finding the right balance of players with the right traits and personalities can give your players boosts to their ratings and model a harmonious locker room.
  
• It is possible for a player to have ‘Best Locker Room Chemistry’ with a player on another team. It is important to keep in mind player relationships and who they have ‘High Locker Room Chemistry’ and ‘Low Locker Room Chemistry’ with on the team. For example, if you trade or demote a player that Henrik Sedin has high chemistry with, it may negatively impact his player morale and overall rating.
  
• Every player's personality is different. Certain personalities will be happier if the team is winning and won’t put much stock in the makeup of the locker room. Other personality types will put more priority on locker room harmony morale and care less about the decisions that the team may make, such as who they may sign, release or send down to the AHL.
  
• This year also introduces ‘Team Meetings’ into the mode, which allows the user to interact with the team based on almost 30 different key events that can happen to a team in a season, such as being on a winning streak, playing a rival, or facing elimination in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Each of the Team Meetings, and the speech you choose to give to the players based on that meeting will impact the players on the team based on their personality type and the situation. As a result of each Team Meeting, every player on the team will consider the situation they were in and how you spoke to them, which will impact their morale and overall rating. Learning what to say and when, based on the makeup of your locker room will be an important factor in maintaining high morale for your players.
  
• There are also Player Meetings you can have with players. There are over 20 different specific conversations you can have, ranging on topics from the recent team performance, failing to renew the contract of a teammate, to being made Team Captain. Each conversation may have an impact on personal morale.

[bibibanax]

So, Kessel is 89 OVR, Toronto over 90... no one, except Arcobello under 80...

[onlybygrace]

:/

Let me ask an obvious question; how in the HELL do they label which player has which kind of personality? Did they give them all psyche evaluations?

I just don't know, anymore.

[AdamJones113]

No, you know what, I'm sorry.

Positives: the individual player chemistry is something to really look forward to. That's a solid addition that, if works well, will make GM mode something. I especially like the "best friend" idea, and it looks like player morale will be affected by in-game performance (though not the other way around, it appears).

When you spend half a trailer showing off sizzle clips and informing us that GM mode has all the great stuff you took out of last year's mode, you get little respect from me. When do team meetings happen?? Is it random?? Who will the draft players' friends be?? Why won't that screw up the system?? We need a deep dive for a mode that has potential to be incredible; we got approximately 40 seconds of new-stuff talk.

Here's my constructive criticism, mods. EA: get someone on here, on THIS forum (we are far more GM-oriented than the EA Forums), and get that person to answer the community's questions. Hell, have the community elect one GM-person (Vikes, actionhank, Simple, Mizzou, Cycloniac, shogun, OBG, bad_philanthropy, matt, nddurst, looking at all you guys and more) to have a couple excellent questions to ask, and have the devs answer that person's questions.

EA—please, guys. How can I have faith in a mode that got a new component when you spend more time on flair and re-introduction?

[BearishRiggs]

It's stupid to mention in the grand scheme of things, but I'll be that guy: they didn't even have Scott Harrington as part of the Kessel trade.

[actionhank]

It's incredibly frustrating that with the way Be a GM has been ignored...this video was essentially 4/5 time spent going "Hey, guys! We've finally put in all of the things we screwed up last year that we said we'd patch into NHL15, but never did." and then a little blurb of "Oh, and we added morale".

Jesus, EA. This isn't Vine. You don't have to make a 1 minute video and cram as much in as possible. Honestly, unless this morale system is mind-blowingly good (and I'm sad to say that with EA's track record...I highly doubt that it will be) NHL16 is almost definitely a no buy, for the 2nd year.

The AI looks the same in everything I've seen, there's been no real talk of how teams handle their players. It pretty much looks like morale is the only thing added to Be a GM, ignoring the features that they put back in that they've had in the game for years now.

[Hammettf2b]

Quote: Originally Posted by AdamJones113

No, you know what, I'm sorry. Positives: the individual player chemistry is something to really look forward to. That's a solid addition that, if works well, will make GM mode something. I especially like the "best friend" idea, and it looks like player morale will be affected by in-game performance (though not the other way around, it appears). When you spend half a trailer showing off sizzle clips and informing us that GM mode has all the great stuff you took out of last year's mode, you get little respect from me. When do team meetings happen?? Is it random?? Who will the draft players' friends be?? Why won't that screw up the system?? We need a deep dive for a mode that has potential to be incredible; we got approximately 40 seconds of new-stuff talk. Here's my constructive criticism, mods. EA: get someone on here, on THIS forum (we are far more GM-oriented than the EA Forums), and get that person to answer the community's questions. Hell, have the community elect one GM-person (Vikes, actionhank, Simple, Mizzou, Cycloniac, shogun, OBG, bad_philanthropy, matt, nddurst, looking at all you guys and more) to have a couple excellent questions to ask, and have the devs answer that person's questions. EA—please, guys. How can I have faith in a mode that got a new component when you spend more time on flair and re-introduction?

I would like to know this as well.

[AdamJones113]

So... from the EA Forums... (EXCERPT)



There are four basic ‘Morale Types’ that feed into a player’s Morale, but we only surface the ‘Overall Morale’ to the user. Each Personality type takes % of ‘Team Performance Morale’, and % of ‘Management Morale’ etc to come up with their Overall Morale. Certain Personalities will be happier if the team is winning, and won’t put much stock in the makeup of the locker room. Other personality types will put more priority on locker room harmony morale, and care less about the decisions that a Team may make in who it signs, releases, or sends down to the AHL etc.



Above is a C# tool example of two different player types being presented with similar scenarios, and how their 4 morale types feed into their Overall Morale. The example player on the left is ‘Happy’ with the Team’s Performance, but ‘Unhappy’ with his Individual Performance. He has ‘Neutral’ morale overall, which means he is unlikely to get any boosts to his ratings in the situation he is in. The player on the right of the picture has ‘Amazing’ Team Mate and Management Morale, overall he is ‘Happy’ and he will likely receive some boosts to his abilities as a result. Managing the various morale values of all your players will be a key to victory in NHL 16.

NHL 16 also introduces ‘Team Meetings’ into the mode, which allows the user to interact the team based on almost 30 different key events that can happen to a team in a season, such as being on a winning streak, losing streak, facing off against a heated rival, or facing elimination in the Stanley Cup Finals. Each of the Team Meetings (and the speech you chose to give to the players based on that meeting) will impact the players on the team based on their personality type and the situation.